disclaimer, as usual. if gravi were mine, there's no way i would have this many student loans. _
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The simple characters stared out mutely from the softly glowing screen. Eiri's eyes widened in shock as his glasses nearly fell off of his nose. Catching them quickly, he grabbed the phone and tapped out a reply: "where are you?"
The reply came back slowly, in about three tension-filled minutes—DON'T KNOW. SOMEWHERE DARK. The novelist's lips tightened. His hand trembled only slightly as he typed back, "we are coming to london. how did you get where you are? tell us how to fi--" Unfortunately, he quickly ran out of space. Growling slightly, he erased the last two sentences, rewrote the message to read "we are coming to london. tell me everything that happened" and clicked send.
Ryuichi's face was paling even more—he looked like he was about to faint. He leaned against the window, making a visible effort to stay conscious as his phone beeped again, this time with an extremely short, succinct message… almost as if it were cut off while someone was writing it. I CAN'T—
Eiri shook the phone, almost as if begging it to reveal more information, then turned to Ryuichi with narrowed eyes. "What do you know about this..?" he growled.
"…Nothing." He pressed his head to the cold window, eyes flickering for a moment and then fading as more color drained from his cheeks. His beloved rabbit fell from his lax hand and onto the floor as he breathed out a sigh, marring the windowpane with frost.
With an almost inhuman snarl, Eiri grabbed the singer by the collar and pulled him close, glaring down with a mixture of anger, fear, and anguish in the greenish-gold eyes. Luckily, the two were fairly close to begin with, so this rough motion went fairly unnoticed by the other patrons of the airport. "No more games. Tell me everything you know. Right. NOW."
"...Let go of me." The singer's cheeks suddenly flushed with a hidden rage, and he smacked Eiri back with surprising force as he freed himself from the strangling grasp.
Those same greenish-gold eyes widened in shock as Eiri found himself struck backwards. The man simply stareed, dumbfounded, for a moment before his eyes narrowed again. With tightly controlled rage, he asked, "Why did you tell me what was going on if you weren't going to tell me the whole truth...?"
Ryuichi blinked at him in utter amazement, eyes sparkling with a hidden malevolent laughter. "Did you think I was telling the truth the whole time?"
Eiri scowled, cheeks reddening slightly as he realizes how easily he had been led. Inwardly, he cursed himself. This is what comes of having a heart... Tohma was right. I should never have gotten involved with Shindou Shuichi. Slowly, the rage in his eyes cooled to something less describable and infinitely colder, then faded to a blank mask. He seemed about to speak when the airport loudspeaker broke in, cutting him off. "Flight 6734 non-stop to London now boarding at Gate B," it proclaimed. Holding Sakuma-san's eyes for a final cold, hard moment, he brushed past the other man, heading for the gate on his own. I don't need him. I'll do this on my own and his 'information' be damned. What good will it do me if he's just going to withhold things...?
As Eiri brushed past him, Ryuichi whispered something in his ear. "If you leave him, Sakuma-san will be so upset... he really wants you to trust him and think he's responsible....but...seeing that you don't care about him anyway...I'll just take him and leave..."
Eiri stopped short, exactly even with the other man. For a moment, he seemed to have simply paused there, frozen in time. This is like a bad novel... His gaze didn't waver, still fixed solidly on his destination... but at last, one hand moved, holding up the two plane tickets... waiting.
"Hn." The singer smiled sickeningly for a moment, until he picked up his Kumagorou and the smile instantly changed from devious to innocent and shiny. The boy grinned up at Eiri, eyes alight with mirth. "Are we ready to go now?"
Eiri's eyes turned at last to regard his companion (for companion he seemed to be, regardless of the writer's wishes), blank and withdrawn. His voice was expressionless. "Yes."
Ryuichi's face fell when he heard the tone in Eiri's voice. "What is it? What's wrong, Eiri-san?" He held his Kumagorou tighter still to his chest, the plush's button eyes bugging out from the sheer force of his hug.
Eiri seemed nothing if not... tired. "Nothing. Come on." He started his approach again, handing the two first-class tickets to the stewardess as she smilingly welcomed them aboard. Yuki settled his shades more firmly against his nose and shoved his hands in his pockets, boarding without another word.
Ryuichi was quite taken with both the walkway and the interior of the plane as he 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed over the metallic structures, running his pink bunny over everything he could possibly touch—sometimes even other passengers, though all the while avoiding touching Eiri-san with any part of his bunny or body.
Yuki kept his head down, securing the window seat for himself. Sakuma-san was left with the aisle as Yuki's hidden eyes stared blankly out of the window. Mechanically, he reached for a cigarette, then cursed at the polite "Thank you for not smoking" signs which adorned every free surface of the aircraft's interior. With a low growl, he replaced the cigarette and resumed his observations of the runway.
Not to be without entertainment for a minute, Sakuma-san procured some beads from his pockets and began to make shiny bracelets for himself and Kumagorou, simply using the useless knick-knacks he found in his pockets and stringing them together upon worn pieces of string. Suddenly, he offered Eiri a bracelet of glass beads and colorful lint, whereupon he had scrawled 'Eiri-san' in huge, cursive Ryuichi letters. "I made something for you!!"
Yuki blinked, taken aback. In that brief moment of blackness, the brown-haired head before him transformed, if only for an instant, into another smiling face, though whether its hair is pink or light blonde was difficult to determine. Yuki swallowed. He hesitated for a moment, then accepted the gift with a brief dip of his head, indicating the thanks he did not trust his voice to convey.
Ryuichi beamed brightly, as if he had gotten exactly what he wanted for Christmas, and turned back to working with his worn wooden beads, stringing them onto a string to tie around his fuzzy friend's neck, all the while humming chords to Sleepless Beauty.
Yuki watched for a moment, then turned to the window again. Expression carefully hidden by the glasses, he tried to shove earlier thoughts out of his mind, but they marched on regardless of his wishes. A dark place... With a purely internal shiver, he closed his eyes. Bad idea. The instant reality was hidden, flashes of memory presented themselves, each demanding to be seen. A dark place, yes; dark and dank, dingy and cold. Hard wall at his back. Grinning faces looming over him, so tall, so large... Yuki's eyes few open again as he choked slightly, covering his mouth with his hand. As he pulled it back, he noticed a small spatter of red against his pale skin. Frown hidden by the ever-present glasses, he lowered the hand quickly to hide the evidence and stared out the window again.
Ryuichi seemed too engrossed in his work to notice Eiri-san, but offered him a small, drink sized napkin off of the drink cart to wipe his hands off with. With a disturbing smile, he added, "Don't think yourself sick on this trip!" and then continued humming his Sleepless Beauty to himself, again working hard on his beaded bracelets.
Eiri scowled to himself but accepted the napkin. At least it's not Tohma. I don't think I could take that right now. He answered with a noncommittal "Hnh" and settled in. It's going to be a long flight...
Somewhere in the middle of the long trip, Ryuichi got up, leaving his Kumagorou, strangely, in the aisle seat, and bounced down to the end of the plane. Eiri figured he'd be back soon enough, but twenty minutes later… still no Ryuichi. K-chan began to slump in its master's seat, feeling unloved and forgotten.
After forty minutes or so, Eiri began to get suspicious. After a full hour, he pulled the stewardess aside as she passed with refreshments and inquired, "Pardon me... have you seen my seatmate? He left some time ago and hasn't returned."
The stewardess looked rather uncomfortable as she pointed down to the end of the plane. "There was a man who has locked himself in that back bathroom and refuses to get out... some of the passengers are becoming rather testy with him..." She bit her lip. "I do hope he's okay..."
Yuki sighed. "Thank you," he replied, and strode to the end of the plane, slipping between whatever irate passengers might be present. He rapped sharply on the bathroom door, awaiting a response. He received none, save for a small sniff behind the large bathroom door.
"Sakuma-san. Is that you?"
Another sniff, and then a long, drawn out, "Haaaaaii....."
"It is time to come out now."
"....I feel sick...."
Yuki frowned. "Do you need a doctor?"
"....I need a janitor...."
Eight... nine... ten.... Yuki tried his level best to keep from snapping. ...eleven... twelve.... His voice was low and barely controlled as he addressed the other passengers. "Would one of you be so.... kind as to fetch someone from Maintenance...?"
The passengers seemed to agree with Eiri's idea, and one went to fetch a maintenance person only to come back with a poor, innocent flight attendant. "What seems to be the trouble, sir?" she asked.
Why me...? Yuki seriously considered walking away and pretending he had nothing to do with the situation. Instead, he growled, "Ask him," and jerked a thumb towards the occupied bathroom.
The poor woman turned to stare at the door, bemused, and was greeted by a muffled sound of ruffled papers, and then a "I'm fine in here—erk—Eiri-saaan!! I have...PAPER TOWELS!!" A scrubbing noise was heard from the bathroom.
This time, Eiri could not hide his expression, eyes squinting shut as his nose wrinkled up in distaste and annoyance. To the stewardess, he remarked, "I believe you will need someone to clean up in there." Turning on his heel, he stalked back to his seat, eyeing the placid pink bunny resentfully. This is all your fault.
Yet another hour later, Ryuichi came back all grins, save for a slight tinge of green upon his cheeks. "I'm okay now! Did you worry about me?" He huggled Kumagorou and directed the question both to his bunny and Eiri-san.
Yuki sighed. Are we there yet...? Ryuichi spent the remainder of the flight singing random Nittle Grasper songs until it seemed that every passenger on board the aircraft must know every single word to those songs and likewise carry a deep resentment for the ecstatic singer bouncing in his seat.
Yuki kept silent throughout the trip save for one brief incident. Ryuichi cycled through his songs pretty much randomly, but as soon as Eiri recognized the first few lines of Shining Collection, he cut the singer off. "Don't... sing that."
A blink from Ryuichi. "Um, why...?" He trailed off, leaving the question lingering in the air like a bad aftertaste.
Yuki's voice was strange and somewhat strained. "Just don't."
"Mm..." Ryuichi flopped his head over to the side, grip loosening upon his Kumagorou, then suddenly tightening again, as he seems to have bounced back from his stupor. "Okay."
Yuki
returned his gaze to the window, burying himself in private thoughts for the
remainder of the flight.
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sorry for the wait, folks…. hope it was worth it!
many thanks to everyone who left feedback. ^^ keep it coming! we need YOUR comments to be able to publish this stuff. ;)
fallen if you're reading this, leave a comment in my journal or midori-chan's? you probably DID meet us both on make_me_shining (it's midori-chan's community). i was going to stalk you to your journal and leave a comment saying "thanks," but it's not in your ff.net profile, so i don't know who you are on lj. ^^;;
next chapter: arrival in london, eiri's patience requires counting to twenty-two, and we get to peek inside the mind of nittle grasper's lead vocalist. what is his motivation? why has he dragged eiri on this quest? stay tuned!
-vethia & midori-chan
